One point about this study: the participants ranged in age from 18 to 53, and yet the judges ranged in age from 18 to 22.

I cannot be the only one who thinks that a 20 year-old judging the attractiveness of a 50 year-old online dater is going to necessarily give a lower attractiveness score than might a judge who is closer to the participant’s age.

It is perhaps for this reason that studies have shown that, unlike this guy, lies on dating profiles are generally quite minor.

Men make themselves a little taller (by about 1”) and women make themselves a little thinner (by about 8 pounds).

I raise this issue because the strongest results in the paper are the ones measuring photographic self-deception, where people have posted pictures of themselves in which they appear significantly more attractive than they do in everyday life.

The older a dater is the more likely it is that they have posted a profile picture in which they are younger.

Or a 75 year-old man looking at the mother of his children and thinking that if she had only been curvy, instead of just plump, his life with her would have been so much better.Several years ago I was chatting on an online dating site with a man who claimed to have a graduate degree.When I asked him what his degree was he revealed that in reality he had spent six years in community college repeatedly starting, but failing to complete, programs.If people “revise” their profile over time in the hope of attracting more attention then, in the data, it will look like less attractive people are more deceptive.They might also be using an older picture simply because that is the one they put up when they started the process and have failed to update it as they have aged.Finally they were photographed in three poses, one of which replicated their main profile picture.